If you are a salaried individual or a pensioner, bad news awaits you.
The new 4-page income tax return form '2F,' which replaces the 1-page Saral, will make life very complicated for you. You now have to give details of all investments, all household expenses, cash in hand, cash in your bank, any loans or gifts that you receive, etc. in the income tax return.
This means all of you will have to keep a statement of all the expenses you make: the exercise will be quite like maintaining a company balance sheet. Instead of making life simpler for you, the government is keen on making it more difficult.
What the new I-T return does, besides increasing your paperwork and pain, is that it infringes on your civil rights. For, even though your tax is deducted at source, you need to tell the government where and how you have spent your money. The imposition of such financial policing on the salaried class is tantamount to harassment of honest taxpayers.
And while the government wants to know the entire financial status of all salaried taxpayers, no effort has been made to bring those who can manipulate their income and evade tax under more supervision.
What do you think of the new tax return?
Do you feel the government has the right to poke its nose into your financial matters, especially when you are an honest taxpayer?
Will this help the government collect more tax? Does this amount to harassment of the salaried people?
Tell us what you think of this and we will send your thoughts to the finance ministry.
More from rediff